Home Maintenance & Punch Lists in Garner, NC

Sorting the list is the job

Garner has a large stock of 1960s to 1980s ranches and split-levels, and houses of that age produce long lists. Fifty years of small faults accumulate, and by the time somebody sits down to write them out there are thirty items.

Thirty items is more than most people want to do at once. So the useful work is not pricing all of it. It is sorting it, and that is a conversation we would rather have honestly than sell you the whole list.

The triage

Three questions, in order.

1. Is it letting water in?

This goes first, every time, regardless of how it looks.

Water damage is the only category on a typical list that compounds. A split caulk joint does not stay a split caulk joint — it lets water into timber, which rots, which spreads, which eventually becomes a structural conversation. A sticking door stays a sticking door for a decade.

What belongs in this category:

• Split or missing caulk, outside and in bathrooms
• A failed seal round a bath or shower
• Any stain on a ceiling or a wall, which needs its source found before anything is repaired
• Gutters discharging against the house rather than away from it
• Soft deck boards, and anything at a deck ledger
• Missing or damaged flashing where anything meets anything
• A window or door letting water past

2. Is it a safety item?

Second, and people underestimate this list.

• A railing that gives when you lean on it
• Steps that vary in height — your feet learn the first one and expect the rest to match, and it is a genuine cause of falls
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that are missing, dead, or older than their service life
• A garage-to-house door with no working self-closer
• Loose or failing electrical fittings
• Anything on a stair

3. Is it getting worse on its own?

A shelf that is sagging, a crack that is growing, a fence post that has started to move. These are cheaper now than later.

Everything else is comfort and appearance, and it can be sequenced across a couple of visits without anything being lost. That includes most of what people actually call about.

What a settled house lets you do properly

Here is the good news about Garner housing, and it changes what is worth spending on.

A home built between 1960 and 1985 has finished moving. The framing has given up its moisture, the structure has taken its set, and the seasonal movement that plagues a new build has largely stopped.

Which means repairs stay repaired:

Cracks over doorways can be cut back, taped and finished in thin coats, and they close for good. In a five-year-old house the same crack is a live joint and it reopens.

Trim mitres that have opened have finished opening.

Panel and moulding work holds its tight joints.

Doors that have settled into their frames stay settled — although they still swell in summer humidity, which is seasonal and should not be planed away.

So on an older house, doing something properly once is a better investment than it is on a new one.

What tends to be on the list

From actual Garner houses:

• Interior doors that have dropped and no longer latch
• Hollow-core doors split at the hinge side
• Original fixtures at the end of their life
• Isolation valves that have never been turned in fifty years
• Popcorn ceilings needing patching — and testing before anyone scrapes, where the texture predates the early 1980s
• Old sheet panelling that somebody wants dealt with
• Corner bead that has rusted and is bleeding through the paint
• Deck boards and railing posts
• Fence posts that have gone at ground level
• Trim profiles that are damaged and no longer sold, so they need building up or milling to match
• Weatherstripping that has taken a permanent set

Seasonal maintenance

Twice a year suits this climate.

Spring, before the humidity: caulk joints, exterior paint on the sun-facing elevations, deck and railing fixings, fence posts, gutters after the pollen.

Autumn, before the freeze: weatherstripping and thresholds, gutters once the leaves are down, exterior faucets, and the alarms.

Holiday decorating

Including the part people forget to book — taking it down again in January. Clips designed for gutters and shingles rather than staples or nails, which leave holes in the surfaces that are keeping water out.

What we do not do

Anything requiring a permit, anything structural, roof work, asbestos removal, and licensed electrical or plumbing work beyond fixture and valve replacement.

On an older house that boundary comes up more often, and we will tell you at the quote which items belong to somebody else rather than discovering it partway through.

Getting a price

Send the list numbered with photographs. If it is long, say so and we will help you sort it rather than just pricing it end to end.

Garner is about half an hour from us, in the same bracket as most of our list.